MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7222, 23 April 1884, Page 4 (Supplement)

MURDER AND SUICIDE.

A WOMAN AND TWO CHILDREN POISONED. NEW PLYMOUTH, April 7. News has just reached here that Mrs Plumridge, better known as Mrs Higgins, a half-caste who is well-known in Auckland

and Wellington, poisoned nersen ana two children with strychnine at about half-past eight o’clock this morning. It appears that she came into New Plymouth and purchased five drachms of strychnine on Friday last, to poison some rats, as she said. An inquest will be held to-morrow. OPUNAKE, April 7. Mrs Plumridge, a half-caste, poisoned herself and two children here last evening. Her brother, George Taylor, was in the house, and also a Maori boy named Tauri. Taylor heard one of the boys vomiting, and went in to see him. Mrs Plumridge sent him to the Constabulary camp for assistance, but did not say anything about poison; and when he returned he found the mother and the other boy poisoned. Some letters, and a written statements s to the cause of the poisoning, were left by the unfortunate woman, and were taken possession of by the police. Apeil 8. An inquest was held to-day on Lonisa Marian Plumb ridge and her two children, who died from poison administered by Mrs Plumbridge on Sunday evening last. Her brother said deceased was 40 years of age. She had ft daughter by her first husband. Captain Higgins, who was living in the King country. Latterly deceased talked about poisoning herself, in consequence of love troubles, but he thought it was only gammon. The jury, after retiring twice, returned a verdict—" That deceased died through poison administered by her own hand, but the evidence did not prove her state of mind at the time the poison was taken." Dr Gibbes, who held the post mortem examination, stated, in reply to the jury, that there was little or no restriction on the sale of poison, beyond the signature in the poison book and the statement as to the purpose for which poison was to be used. He thought the law was very lax in that respect.